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India testing Smart I-card project

New Delhi, Thursday February 28, 2008:

India is planning to issue a Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC), also referred to as Smart Card to its citizens.

The project envisages providing unique National Identity Number (NIN) to each person in the National Population Register.

However given the complexities involved in registering and issuing cards to its more than one billion citizens, an experimental project has been undertaken in selective areas, the Indian government said Wednesday.

A pilot project, under which identity (smart) cards are being issued to the adult citizens, has been under implementation on experimental basis covering a population of 3 million in the selected areas in 12 States and one Union Territory, India’s junior minister for Home Affairs, Manikrao Gavit informed the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the country’s bicameral parliament Wednesday.

The production and distribution of identity cards would to be completed by March this year and the scheme would be implemented in the entire country in the light of the experiences of the pilot project, Gavit said.

Earlier in January the local government in Indian capital New Delhi tried to make carrying of Identity cards mandatory for its citizens.

The plan met stiff opposition from neighbouring north Indian states, from where a large number of migrants flock to the metropolis looking for jobs.